Most undergraduates in this country are notorious for their infantile behaviour. Only their torsos are fit to be in universities and their brains really belong to kindergarten. Tiny tots may take this as an affront if they know what is happening in those places called universities. In many respects, kindergarteners are far better than rowdy undergraduates. They do not kill one another!

Some undergraduates are never at peace with either the world or themselves. They fight over anything. The latest incident of university violence is reported from Kelaniya, where on Wednesday students clashed over a piece of rope, so to speak. The cause of flare-up was a row over a tug-of-war at an Avurudhu festival. They are so mentally unsound that they may plunge universities even into a bloodbath over a coconut husk or an empty can.

It looks as if the university authorities were allergic to keeping their institutions open. They close them at the first sign of trouble. Is it that they do not want to miss any opportunity to close universities and take a rest? It may become necessary to close a university in the immediate aftermath of a violent clash but to keep them closed for days or weeks on end is to play into the hands of the disruptive elements bent on unleashing chaos. What is needed is to keep universities open and weed out the troublemakers.

The plain-spoken Minister of Higher Education S. B. Dissanayake has to prove that he is equal to the task he has undertaken. For decades, successive governments have tried various methods to tackle the problem of university violence and ragging but in vain. The time has come for sterner action to liberate universities.

The identities of those responsible for Wednesday's violence in Kelaniya must be known to the university authorities. It is for those ruffians and not other students that the campus should have been declared out of bounds. Collective punishment must not be meted out as it affects the innocent most. The culprits must be hunted down and brought to justice immediately so that the vast majority of students could pursue their studies free from trouble. If needs be, let the police and the armed forces enter the university and round up the psychopaths in the garb of undergraduates.

The thugs unleashing mayhem in universities seem to need some basic education. They should be sent back to kindergarten.

Gods neutral

Marxism has no place for deity. But, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva seems to believe in gods while professing to be a Marxist! He has attributed the postponement of the V-Day parade scheduled for yesterday to some divine act. The government, according to him, incurred the wrath of gods by trying to celebrate the first anniversary of Sri Lanka's victory over terrorism while detaining former Army Chief Gen. Sarath Fonseka.

We, the lesser mortals, are not privy to what deities do. After all, they operate in mysterious ways, don't they? So, we have no way of either accepting or disputing JVP General Secretary's claim of a divine intervention on behalf of the DNA. Let him have the benefit of the doubt.

But, wasn't the JVP's adhistana pooja aimed at pressuring the government to release Gen. Fonseka on the day of V-day celebrations also postponed? Who was responsible for causing its postponement? Must be the same gods who scuttled the government event, eh?

Thus, it may be argued that gods have not taken sides as such; they have caused both events to be washed out and thereby demonstrated their neutrality.